Thursday 9 January 2014

Just Swoon

Cerebus #164, Page 10
Original art by Dave Sim & Gerhard (November 1992); Recreated art by Dave Sim (2008)
(Click image to enlarge)
DAVE SIM:
(via ComicArtFans, 2008)
I was interested in "having a go" at the [Bernie] Wrightson-by-way-of-Kelly-Jones look now that I have had more experience with brush inking... I also wanted to try doing Wrightson-style clouds with the Gillott 290 (now that I know what that can do).

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bernie Wrightson? I don't see it. Maybe a bit in the folds across Swoon's chest in the right-hand page's large panel. Anyone?

-- Damian T. Lloyd, art

Anonymous said...

The recreation is very good, but I prefer the original.

Gerhard's backgrounds: so good. They're clean. Detailed but not busy. They are perfectly integrated with the foreground and the story. They don't distract. They focus the eye right to the character's face in each panel. The characters pop out from the backgrounds even though the backgrounds are detailed. The newer version is weaker in all those respects.

I also find the facial expressions and lettering more understated and melancholy in the original, which contrasts the silly dialogue and makes it funnier. The commoner in the new version is drawn in a bit of Jack Davis style, which makes it look too jokey and a bit hackneyed for my taste.

It's a good Wrightson impression too, especially in the first panel, but I prefer the older "Dave Sim and Gerhard" style of drawing in the original.

-Reginald P.

Anonymous said...

@Damian:

To me, the background clouds and the tombstone in the first panel screams Wrightson. With the Jack Davis drawn commoner it has kind of a 1970s style. I think there's too much of a disconnect there and it doesn't really work. I mean, it's well rendered and Dave's still a masterful cartoonist, but I think it suffers in comparison to his earlier work with Gerhard.

-Reginald P.

Tony Dunlop said...

I also prefer the original, except for the sneakers. LOOOOVE the sneakers.

Birdsong said...

Wrightson-by-way-of-Kelly-Jones indeed. It is a great parody of the Sandman as drawn by Jones in some of the early issues. I can never decide what kind of commission I would like to hire Dave to do, but a page recreation like this would be interesting especially if he is up to attempting it in another artist's style. The real challenge is finding a favorite among 6,000 pages.

Anonymous said...

One non-art point occurs to me, hearkening back to Dave's discussion of the Quack cover several days ago: The right-hand page puts "SwoonCommaMortals" all on one line. That's funnier than the original page's "SwoonComma / Mortals". It emphasizes the villager's mistake more.

-- Damian T. Lloyd, edt

Anonymous said...

The sneakers are indeed splendid.

Also, I'm seeing a little bit of Brian Boland in the

"no no no, "SWOON COMMA mortals"" panel.

-Wesley Smith